Outline

This Professional Development is designed to explore how feedback can be provided synchronously.

Both synchronous and asynchronous feedback have a place in the classroom. In the hybrid classroom, this provides opportunities to provide feedback "just in time" and feedback that can be reflected and acted upon at the student's own pace.

What is synchronous feedback?
Why is synchronous feedback important?
Conferencing for synchronous feedback
Real-time feedback with online quizzes
Live feedback using shared Google Docs
Reflection

Learning design principles

Providing Synchronous Feedback

What is synchronous feedback?

Synchronous means “occurring at the same time”. In the hybrid classroom, this might mean that you are physically in the same place as the student, or distant from them but using digital tools to work with them in real-time

Why is synchronous feedback important?

Synchronous feedback has many advantages: the student can hear and respond to feedback live, it is immediate and relevant, and if the student has any questions they can seek clarification right away.

Time - Synchronous

Make a copy of the lesson

Three methods for synchronous feedback

Conferencing, Real-time Quizzes, Live Feedback in Docs

1. Conferencing for Synchronous Feedback

Conferencing offers a real-time, face-to-face method of feedback that can be highly individualised and used to support individuals and groups

In a conferencing session, a teacher can provide synchronous feedback which can be acted on immediately by the student. This allows the student to hear first-hand what they need to do to improve, rather than reading comments or corrections

How conferencing works

In a conferencing lesson the teacher prepares the class to work on a self-paced learning task.

While the class is working, the teacher visits individuals or small groups to provide feedback on recent work.

The teacher may “catch and release” the whole class to check in at various points.

The lesson ends with a whole-class debrief to prepare for future lessons.

2. Real-time quizzes

Click here for an editable copy of the Form used in this example

Google Forms can be used to create quizzes that provide real-time feedback through automatic answers and points. The following slides show a few examples of how Forms can be used to construct an engaging quiz or test in any subject area.

Using Google Forms can save a great deal of time in your assessment and feedback processes.

Enable quiz mode

The first step is to make your Form a quiz. Turn on the feature in settings to open up point scoring, answer keys, and feedback options.

Multiple choice

Use multiple choice questions when there is more than one possible correct answer. Users must select one response, even if there are multiple possibilities.

ALl questions in Google Forms can be given a point score.

When editing the question, click answer key to select the correct options and enable points.

Dropdown

Dropdowns are great for questions which only have one correct answer.

In this screenshot you can see the user’s view: the student must select only one of the answers.

Just like the other forms of question you can use the answer key to set the correct response and award points.

Checkbox

Checkboxes allow users to select more than one correct answer.

In this example, the teacher has also added feedback using the add feedback feature.

This can provide feedback for both incorrect and correct answers and may include text, links, and videos.

Short and long answer

If you want your students to write longer responses, there are still ways to give immediate feedback.

While longer answers may need manual feedback, short answers can be checked against your preset correct responses in the same way as other questions.

You can also provide feedback for students based on their responses.

3. Live feedback using shared Google Docs

Google Docs can be used to provide live feedback in a number of ways. This has a few advantages. First of all, you can be sharing a Doc with a student who is anywhere in the world. You could quickly jump into a Doc with a student in your class right now, or just as easily share a Doc with a learner at home.

Combining Google Docs with other tools such as Chat and Meet adds extra possibilities to how you provide synchronous feedback.

Leave comments and tag students

While a student is working on a Doc you can comment in real-time and provide detailed feedback.

To comment, highlight and press the comment button or cmd+option+m (Mac) or ctrl+alt+m (Windows)

To draw their attention to the comment, use @tags either in the main document or in the comment.

Start a face-to-face Meet

You can initiate a Google Meet with the student while you are both working on the Doc.

This makes it even easier to provide live feedback while you are both engaged in working on the Doc.

Use the Google Meet button in the top right, near to the Share settings.

Edit, suggest, and collaborate

Many people can work simultaneously on a doc. This means that students can peer assess each other’s work while the teacher monitors and provides feedback.

Each use has their own unique icon, name, and colour whether they are signed in or not.

Users can choose to edit directly or make suggestions, and all changes are tracked.

Reflection

What do these methods of synchronous feedback make you think about?
What questions do they raise?
Have you had any epiphanies or 'ah-ha' moments?

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